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The Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP), part of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai, launched in late 2015 an initiative with the title “Dubai We Learn”. In collaboration with the Center of Organizational Research in New Zealand (COER), the initiative strived to foster a culture of institutional learning and knowledge exchange within the governmental sector in Dubai, and consisted of a range of benchmarking activities. Thirteen projects from 13 different government departments took part in this award winning initiative. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority, with its project “People Happiness”, made the most recognizable progress in this field.
In an effort to embrace a culture of well-being within the workplace from top-down and bottom-up; KHDA altered its recruitment, retention and attrition policies and systems to select and support employees who will help contribute to the KHDA’s culture of well-being. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority succeeded in winning the Dubai Government Excellence Program award for having the happiest employees by implementing a novel, and cutting edge approach to improving the work environment. This was not confined to the Authority’s employees only, but rather all stakeholders who deal with the latter; such as parents, visitors, school administrators, teachers, and business partners. Reflecting on their achievements in improving employee happiness will be critical for this new phase in human resource management.